We have a Tivo Premiere XL and for the last few months, we've been seeing that the TiVo has been keeping fewer and fewer programs. I posted about this back in January here http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=499362 but the problem has actually gotten worse.

We have set it up so that all the season passes we really care about are set to KUID. We have other season passes, mostly for kids shows, which are not set that way. We have been noticing that anything that is not set to KUID is actually deleted either immediately after the show stops recording or shortly thereafter. Just this morning, just to verify before writing this post, I recorded two shows -- one on each tuner. After recording stopped, I went in to "My Shows" to see if they were still there; they were. But less than 5 minutes later, one of them was deleted. I went in to the "Recently Deleted" folder and nothing is there. As I was typing out this post, I noticed that the other one was deleted as well. When I started this post, space usage was reported at 38%. Just now, I looked up and saw space usage was reported at 37%. I went looking for that second show and it's gone. It's not showing in "Recently Deleted", either. Needless to say, this is incredibly frustrating.

Last night, in hopes of perhaps hopefully fixing whatever is going wrong, I had TiVo run some checks/diagnostics on the hard drive. I used the guide found here http://www.weaknees.com/tivo-kickstart-codes.php and I ran it through the following:

I don't know the results of the first 2 (no notification was given) but the last test (which took all night to run) showed that everything passed. So whatever is wrong, it doesn't seem to be the hard drive. I've searched around and it doesn't look like the drive needs any kind of defragging but I can't think of anything else it might be. *Something* is using up the other 63% of the space and TiVo doesn't seem to be able to fully utilize it.

Do any of you have any suggestions you can offer as to what I can do/check next? I just don't know what more we should do. We haven't had this box very long (perhaps 2 - 3 years?) and we have a lifetime subscription with it so I'm not too keen on just going out and replacing it. So any ideas/suggestions would be very welcome.

Maybe the space used number is not accurate. I don't have such a number on my TiVo HD (Series 3) -- is this a feature added in your model? If you have series season passes that are KUID, I could see the usage just growing and growing until the disk is full.

You could test this by deleting several shows that are now KUID then running your record-two-shows test again.

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Maybe the space used number is not accurate. I don't have such a number on my TiVo HD (Series 3) -- is this a feature added in your model? If you have series season passes that are KUID, I could see the usage just growing and growing until the disk is full.

You could test this by deleting several shows that are now KUID then running your record-two-shows test again.

It's accurate. I have a total of approx 45hrs worth of shows recorded, in both HD and SD format. When I go to "System Information", it says that I have space for up to 97HD hours or 851 SD hours. And over the last several months, we have been watching and deleting those that are set to KUID and still this is happening. We have them set to KUID not because we want to watch the episode over and over again over time but because we don't want the tivo to delete it before we've had the chance to watch it the first time.

FWIW an excessive number of KUID SPs can result in the kind of behavior you're seeing, while it's not always the case, KUID can be aggressive, especially with the "keep all episodes" setting since it looks at all available upcoming episodes as part of it wanting to keep space open in for future airings.

For some reason folks seem to want to KUID when it's not needed and in as long as you're letting it record suggestions, it'll rarely delete even expired shows if you recorded them.

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FWIW an excessive number of KUID SPs can result in the kind of behavior you're seeing, while it's not always the case, KUID can be aggressive, especially with the "keep all episodes" setting since it looks at all available upcoming episodes as part of it wanting to keep space open in for future airings.

For some reason folks seem to want to KUID when it's not needed and in as long as you're letting it record suggestions, it'll rarely delete even expired shows if you recorded them.

Well, except for the fact that this behavior predates me setting everything I record to be KUID. The tivo started deleting programs despite the fact that I still had space. So to ensure that we were able to still see the programs we recorded, we had to set all our season passes (and even the one off recordings) to be KUID. So whatever is happening, it's not because everything is set to KUID. I don't discount the possibility that the KUID setting is exacerbating the problem but if I remove that setting (and I have; I've done this for kids shows we didn't care much about just to test a theory) then the tivo will delete all those programs after a short time, bypassing the "Recently Deleted" folder.

I've searched around for possible solutions to this problem and I know all the common responses. Again, see my previous post linked above. I've tried everything that I know of to try up to and including the diagnostic utilities (also linked above). Whatever is going on is seemingly (at least from my perspective and my searching) atypical. I'm just hoping that someone has or knows of something I can do/try that is perhaps equally atypical.

Well, except for the fact that this behavior predates me setting everything I record to be KUID. The tivo started deleting programs despite the fact that I still had space. So to ensure that we were able to still see the programs we recorded, we had to set all our season passes (and even the one off recordings) to be KUID. So whatever is happening, it's not because everything is set to KUID. I don't discount the possibility that the KUID setting is exacerbating the problem but if I remove that setting (and I have; I've done this for kids shows we didn't care much about just to test a theory) then the tivo will delete all those programs after a short time, bypassing the "Recently Deleted" folder.

I've searched around for possible solutions to this problem and I know all the common responses. Again, see my previous post linked above. I've tried everything that I know of to try up to and including the diagnostic utilities (also linked above). Whatever is going on is seemingly (at least from my perspective and my searching) atypical. I'm just hoping that someone has or knows of something I can do/try that is perhaps equally atypical.

thnx,
Christoph

and in the thread linked to your previous thread is this advice:

Quote:

Originally Posted by tivosupport_taylor

Hello TiVo Community,

It appears that some of you are experiencing an issue where shows that seemingly should not be deleted, are inexplicably deleted. Keep in mind that your TiVo will delete things as necessary to make room for upcoming recordings. Recently however, it appears that TiVo Premiere users are reporting instances where recordings are being deleted for no reason. If you are experiencing an issue on any Premiere Series TiVo where recordings that are set to “Keep Until I Delete” are being deleted prematurely please send me a private message with the following information so that we can track instances of this issue and work to resolve it.

-TiVo Service Number (found on the back of the unit or in SYSTEM INFORMATION):
-The reason RECORDING HISTORY reports for deletion:
-The percentage usage reported by the disk space meter at the top of MY SHOWS:
-The recording was deleted as part of a season pass (Y/N):
If the recording that was deleted was part of a season pass please record the following:
-Keep at most:
-Show Type:
-Keep Until:
Thank you for your assistance,
Taylor

and in the thread linked to your previous thread is this advice:
Have you done that?

No, I haven't. Because it states:

If you are experiencing an issue on any Premiere Series TiVo where recordings that are set to “Keep Until I Delete” are being deleted prematurely please send me a private message with the following information so that we can track instances of this issue and work to resolve it.

My problem is not that it is deleting the programs set to KUID. My problem is that unless I set a program to KUID, the tivo deletes it very soon after the show finishes recording. I have to set everything I record to KUID to ensure that the program sticks around until we are able to watch it. Afterwards, we manually delete the program. So my situation is exactly the opposite of what tivosupport_taylor was asking for.

If I were you I would just upgrade to a larger HD. Do NOT add an external drive. 2 TB would get you 318 HD and 2774 SD. 1 TB would get you 1/2 of that.

What is involved in this? Can I just add a second drive and the tivo will see and use that space? Or are you suggesting that I replace the primary drive with a larger one? If that's the case, is it simply a matter of copying the contents of the existing drive (including the OS) to the new drive? Will I have to worry about the MBR? (I would imagine I'd need to but I'm unsure)

What is involved in this? Can I just add a second drive and the tivo will see and use that space? Or are you suggesting that I replace the primary drive with a larger one? If that's the case, is it simply a matter of copying the contents of the existing drive (including the OS) to the new drive? Will I have to worry about the MBR? (I would imagine I'd need to but I'm unsure)

Ok, I'll consider this. But I do have a question -- I ran through the hard drive test and everything passed. I would think that if there were bad sectors, et. al., the tests would show that to be the case. Is it not?

Empirically, it seems like tivo just isn't freeing up the space used by programs that have been previously deleted. Or something. As stated above, there is only about 55hrs worth of HD and SD content listed in "My Shows" and that's being reported as 37% of total available space. That other 63% must be getting used by something. And something that the tivo isn't seeing/using unless I set a program to be KUID (or is recorded that way from the start; e.g. any of my season passes). Is there any way I might be able to see what that could be? Through some diagnostic utility on the tivo itself? Or would I need to pull out the hard drive and navigate through it's file system from another *nix computer?

I don't know if I would trust the tests that are run from the Tivo.
To accurately test the hard drive, it is recommended that you remove it from the Tivo and hook it up to the computer and run the manufacturers diagnostics on it.
That will usually give better results.

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